Artist market, experimental art & more

AUX is an ICE-supported event and publication series devoted to experimental art in all forms. This Saturday AUX will host its fourth annual festival featuring performances, visual art and sound installations, video screenings, and artists' market. The daylong event takes place in two venues in downtown Athens and attracts nearly five hundred spectators.

Long time subscribers to the ICE list will remember the first AUX Collaborative Arts Event, back in2006, to celebrate the creation of a CD entitled "AUX: experimental sound from Athens, GA".Building on the success of three festivals and the critically acclaimed CD, this has been a banner year for AUX. Last fall we brought the legendary performance group Faust for a sold-out 40 Watt performance and workshop, hosted a youth workshop for sound and movement, and prepared to launch a second volume of experimental sound.

We are very pleased to bring special guests Mary Halvorson and Jessica Pavone (New York) and Michael Columbia (Chicago/Cincinnati) for this year's event. AUX is sponsored by Little Kings, Cine, Flagpole, Nuci's Space, and ICE.

Mary Halvorson and Jessica Pavone are a Brooklyn-based collaborative duo that draw fromclassical, jazz and folk traditions while experimenting with new forms. Their music exploresimprovisation and composition while utilizing amplification and electronic effects as well asacoustic presentation.

Pavone leads Army of Strangers and The Pavones, and has also performed in ensembles led byAnthony Braxton, Matthew Welch, Matana Roberts, Elliot Sharp, and Jeremiah Cymerman. As acomposer, she has earned grants and commissions from the Aaron Copland Recording Fund, theAmerican Music Center, The Kitchen, MATA and the group, Till By Turning, which recentlypresented the European premiere of "Quotidian" at Faust's Klangbad Festival 2009 in Germany.

Michael Columbia is not a person, but three people who make progressive and experimental popmusic. They reside at the Shape Shoppe in Chicago and are active with groups such as Icy Demons,Chandeliers, Herculaneum, Need New Body, Bablicon, and Olivia Tremor Control. MichaelColumbia create a blend of new and old by using psychedelic synths, layered vocals, andinnovative drumming that combines electronics, rhythm, and melody into mind-melting, yetaccessible tunes.